I get lots of lawn care flyers at my door. These flyers for the most part are copies of hand written originals. Others where created in the computer and include clip art of a lawnmower or other yard care icon.

When I got home yesterday, there was a new flyer jutting out of my mail slot. When I unrolled it, I was pleasantly surprised.

This flyer is obviously drawn by Juan’s son or daughter. It is my favorite and intrigues me because it shows a curiosity about architecture and landscape, it also demonstrates an understanding of how people interact with space and the concept of perspective (the men in the background are drawn smaller than in the foreground). These are concept many architecture students struggle with.

In my experience doing community and participatory design workshops I’ve found that many have the raw talent needed for architecture or design. But often it is not nurtured along.

Any one can be an architect, not to say everyone can be an architect, but an architect can be found anywhere. The hand that drew this is the hand of a future architect.

CHICAGO, Aug. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Though housing values are still slow to rebound from the collapse of the real estate market, a new analysis from CEOs for Cities reveals that homes in more walkable neighborhoods are worth more than similar homes in less-walkable neighborhoods, pointing to a bright spot in the residential real estate market.

The report, “Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities” by Joseph Cortright, analyzed data from 94,000 real estate transactions in 15 major markets provided by ZipRealty and found that in 13 of the 15 markets, higher levels of walkability, as measured by Walk Score, were directly linked to higher home values. (download study)

“Even in a turbulent economy, we know that walkability adds value to residential property just as additional square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms and other amenities do,” said Cortright. “It’s clear that consumers assign a tangible value to the convenience factor of living in more walkable places with access to a variety of destinations.”

Walkability is defined by the Walk Score algorithm, which works by calculating the closest amenities – restaurants, coffee shops, schools, parks, stores, libraries, etc. – to any U.S. address. The algorithm then assigns a “Walk Score” from 0-100, with 100 being the most walkable and 0 being totally car-dependent. Walk Scores of 70+ indicate neighborhoods where it’s possible to get by without a car. By the Walk Score measure, walkability is a direct function of how many destinations are located within a short distance (generally between one-quarter mile and one mile of a home).

The study found that in the typical metropolitan area, a one-point increase in Walk Score was associated with an increase in value ranging from $700 to $3,000 depending on the market. The gains were larger in denser, urban areas like Chicago and San Francisco and smaller in less dense markets like Tucson and Fresno.

“These findings are significant for policy makers,” said Carol Coletta, President and CEO of CEOs for Cities, which commissioned the research. “They tell us that if urban leaders are intentional about developing and redeveloping their cities to make them more walkable, it will not only enhance the local tax base but will also contribute to individual wealth by increasing the value of what is, for most people, their biggest asset.”

An example of the effect of walkability on housing values cited in the study is found in Charlotte, NC. In a neighborhood with a typical Walk Score of 54 called Ashley Park, the median home price was $280,000. In a neighborhood with an above average Walk Score – 71 – called Wilmore, an otherwise similar home would be valued at $314,000. Controlling for all other factors including size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, age, neighborhood income levels, distance from the Central Business District and access to jobs, “If you were to pick up that house in Ashley Park, and place it in more walkable Wilmore, it would increase in value by $34,000 or 12 percent,” Cortright said.

In the typical metropolitan areas studied, the premium commanded for neighborhoods with above average Walk Scores compared to those with average Walk Scores ranged from $4,000 to $34,000, depending on the metro area.

“‘Walking the Walk’ shows definitively what we’ve always believed – that homes in walkable neighborhoods continue to be a good investment, and are one of the simplest and most effective solutions to fight climate change, improve our health, and strengthen our communities,” said Walk Score founder Mike Mathieu. “Our vision is for every property listing to include a Walk Score: Beds: 3 Baths: 2 Walk Score: 84.”

The study included 15 metropolitan areas, finding a statistically significant positive relationship between walkability and home values in 13 areas: Arlington, Virginia; Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas, Texas; Fresno, California; Jacksonville, Florida; Phoenix, Arizona; Sacramento, California; San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Stockton, California and Tucson, Arizona. In one metro area, Las Vegas, walkability was correlated with lower housing values, and in Bakersfield, California, there was no statistically significant connection between walkability and housing values. Real estate data for these markets was provided by ZipRealty, a national full-service residential real estate brokerage.

“There are a number of trends that are reshaping the American Dream,” said Coletta, “and the value home buyers now place on living close to more daily destinations is one of the most important. Now, planning, zoning and development decisions have to catch up to consumers.”

About CEOs for Cities

CEOs for Cities is a national cross-sector network of urban leaders from the civic, business, academic and philanthropic sectors dedicated to building and sustaining the next generation of great American cities. For more information visit www.ceosforcities.org

The time that we are in now is often compared to the Great Depression. Also links are made between the New Deal, WPA and other programs with the Stimulus Package, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and other associated programs. I’m not in the position or carry any real expertise to compare and contrast the economics and effectiveness of the programs. However, I’ve been having a thought pattern flowing regarding a direct comparison of the design of those.

While, I wasn’t alive during that time, it seems clear the WPA was visible in communities making things happening and getting people to work. It’s evident in Fresno from the concrete stamped with WPA in the Tower District to the Chandler Airport.

There also seemed to be a concentrated effort to leverage design for education and raising moral. I’ve always been a fan of the depression era WPA posters. And frankly there are allot of them. Good design makes a world of difference.

My point here is the current Stimulus and ERRA do not seem as well branded as the New Deal and WPA. To me it seems that there should be more educational graphic content on the street. Perhaps that is why many in this country struggle to understand exactly what the program is doing and how it effects us.

Compare these two signs. The one on the left uses 1 icon, 2 logos and 13 words to convey it’s message. The one on the right clearly conveys is message with only 2 words and 2 acronyms which is also its logo. Please share your thoughts on this topic.

While searching for a news article from the Fresno Bee, I stumbled upon an amazing resource. It was a webpage called Super Signage Fresno, CA. I’ve had a little obsession about signage for the past couple of months.

Unfortunately, THE FRESNAN stole my thunder and posted this early today. He pulled it from my twitter feed when I discovered the site yesterday. Mike has become an archop groupie giving the site his Bloggiest Moment of the Week for two weeks in a row. With lots of link love, I’ll let this one pass. But Mike, remember, the built environment is the realm of archop, stray too far and we will school you.

Now that that little blog warfare is out of the way… Digging deeper into the site called www.agilitynut.com, we see that Deborah Jane has collected an amazing inventory of Roadside Architecture from across the country. You can search type and even browse signage by place. There are even a sampling some of my favorite architectural styles including Art Deco and Mid-Century. I have not read much about the author yet. So, I’m wondering what is her method is for collecting all of this data. But one thing is sure, we’ll continue to use it at a resource.

In the sampling of Art Deco architecture. I saw this building. While slurping some Pho you may have noticed this architectural gem called the Ivory Tower. “The Ivory Tower stands in the parking lot of the Mayfair Shopping Center. The shopping center was built in 1945 and has since been remodeled. This remaining structure was used as the Administration Building and might also have contained a clothes shop.”

Take some time exploring the site. I’m sure it not comprehensive, so what are your favorites? What was missed?

I’m amazing in how much articulation there used to be in signage. It was part of the architecture not just the lighted boxed with replaceable copy that is so prevalent today. How do we get back to that? Where are the missed opportunities?

To build without engaging the “cluster” is impossible. To design without engaging the “cluster” is a missed opportunity.

Though it had been published several years prior, I can recall being captivated by the notion of “clusters” in Michael Porter’s article in the Harvard Business Review called “Clusters And The New Economics of Competition”. As Porter has described it, clusters are geographic concentration of interconnected companies and institutions in a particular field. As I had interpreted it, the “architecture cluster” is the network of interrelated professionals – with whom I was responsible to be exchanging information with.

As architects, we are traditionally very good at exchanging information among our peers – essentially only a single sector within the “architecture cluster.” This phenomenon can perhaps be traced back to our days in studio when the entire design process was transparent to our colleagues, professors and critics alike. This form of information exchange is embedded in our working models and should remain. However, where I see huge potential for improvement is within the “architecture cluster.”

Recognizing the value that other professionals can add to our design process is the first step. As mentioned, architecture can not be realized without the participation of interrelated disciplines such as; finance, development, engineering, planning, environmental sciences, marketing, journalism, product design, product suppliers, construction, etc. We share space within the “architecture cluster” with these professionals but too often exclude them from the design process.

In Porter’s article, he draws upon the example of the California Wine Cluster. Among the 680 commercial wineries, it includes grape growers, suppliers, irrigation utilities, harvesting equipment suppliers, label printers, advertising firms, etc. Recognizing all too well that without one of these components, the availability of wine to the consumer would be compromised.

Admittedly, it will most often be the architect’s responsibility to organize and engage the related disciplines when working on a new project but with digital communication and social media marketing tools available to us today, this is significantly easier to organize and facilitate.

As always, I welcome the opportunity for this to be more of an open dialogue. Perhaps a suggestion to others who are contributing to this topic to think back on projects in which information was exchanged within the “architecture cluster” and how beneficial the information was to the help deliver a successful project……….

For the 2nd edition of Theory Thursday we focus on the small stuff.

What started as an ideas competition for a small sign sponsored by the City of Fresno’s Downtown and Community Revitalization department has ballooned in to a hot debate involving community leaders, downtown advocates, graphic designers, and city leaders. So how and why did such a small sign create such a big conversation?

There is a book called A Pattern Language, that is basically standard issue at the College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley, where I got my education. That is partly because CED faculty such as Christopher Alexander wrote the book. But a larger part due to its great success at dissecting planning, architecture and design theories in to small manageable parts. Those managable part can be discussed individually and as an integrated part of the whole. The premise being that a pattern language emerges.

The book is meant more as reference guide than a read it cover to cover kind of book. It begins with large sweeping topics like: Independent Regions, Distribution of Towns, City Country Fingers, Agricultural Valleys, etc. But as the book progresses its focus narrows to smaller more manageable theories like: Pools of light, warm colors, ornament, paving with cracks between the stones, climbing plants, raised flower beds, canvas roofs, seat spot, etc.

These small things are important and sparked a huge discussion about one little sign because they are tangible. We can much more easily grasp the idea of a sign or a bench because we have intimate experience with them. And it is the details that make a world of difference in design and our experience of the built environment.

Please share some of the small things that have caught or your eye or intrigued you in Fresno or other cities.

Fresno to Welcome The Fultonia Live/Work Village

Fresno, CA – Nestled in an area between downtown Fresno and the Tower District will be The Fultonia Live/Work Village, a mixed-use development that offers 39 units of quality, moderately-priced housing and 10 commercial spaces.

Project design and information

Those who don’t wish to pay substantial sums of money for premium housing may find a home at The Fultonia Live/Work Village. The redevelopment, in an area that is being proposed as the SOTOW District, or South of Tower, also gives professionals and entrepreneurs the chance to invest in live/work units to reduce travel to and from work.

Developer TFS Investments, LLC, is about to begin construction on the project, at the site of what originally was a 39-unit low-income apartment complex along with 10 retail/office spaces located along Fulton Street that has fallen into disrepair. The goal is to take that same property and redevelop it entirely, and breathe new life into it as well as encourage the rest of the blighted neighborhood to make improvements as well.

“For the Fultonia project, providing quality, affordable housing is our number one focus,” said Terance Frazier, owner of TFS Investments. “At TFS Investments, we are doing the right thing and developing a bustling community where there wasn’t one before.”

Project manager is Tyco General, Inc., which has experience in managing numerous types of commercial construction projects.

The finished results will be a bright, colorful complex of buildings, complete with palm trees, banners and apartment balconies. The storefronts will house such businesses as retail shops, offices and small restaurants, and a large central courtyard plaza will be a place to gather and enjoy sunny days.

“Terance and TFS Investments has a bold vision for affordable housing that will not only help families who need assistance, but will provide investment and energy in

communities that need it most,” said Preston Prince, executive director of the Housing Authorities of the City and County of Fresno.

TFS Investments owner Terance Frazier, Fresno City Council President Cynthia Sterling, and Executive Director of the Housing Authorities of the City and County of Fresno Preston Prince, will take part in a press conference this Wednesday at 11 a.m. at the site, located at 532-614 Fulton St. in Fresno, 93721, to kick off construction on the project.

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TFS Investments, LLC is one of central California’s leading real estate investment firms. TFS Investments is also known as an experienced commercial and residential real estate developer. Some of the company’s current projects include a twenty acre development in Pflugerville, Texas, the development of 120 acres in southeast Fresno and a nine acre development in central Fresno.

Tyco General, Inc. is a full service Design/Build general contracting firm and has been serving California since 1998. It has been involved in many types of commercial construction projects.

This week I received my copy of dwell magazine in the mail. The cover reads “BEYOND GREEN From Niche to Normal” The issue acknowledges what we’ve all witnessed in this last decade; green has gone from extreme to mainstream. And yet there a a few paradoxes I observe.

Most architects have always believed in sustainable design. It has been part of our education for at least the last two generations. Yet many had to shrug off the green horns, so to speak, as they integrated into the practice. They assimilated into the mainstream perception of green as some hippy pseudo science and threw up their hands to market forces.

Today, thanks to predictable and repeatable science, global calamities and the hard work of the few that never gave up on building a better future, green is center stage. And yet many of my friends and associates accept that many products are now being marketed at us with a green label without any real commitment to solving local and global environmental issues. It’s a marketing hook, the green wash. But this is nothing new consumer trends are always being capitalized. The issue that I take with it is that the mainstream architecture industry is tending to jump on this band wagon with out leading the sustainability effort forward. And today we still deal with the same economic issues as before.

The last paradox I’ll bring up is one that Editor-in-Chief of Dwell Sam Grawe writes “In all honesty, I’m pretty sure I’m not sustainable.” We can see very little changes in the fundamentally unsustainable lives that we live day in and out. Thousands of people have become LEED accredited professionals but have yet to work on a LEED building or turn a critical eye on themselves and make the necessary individual sacrifices to insure that Earth can live on as a healthy system.

Looking at myself. I’ve made a commitment to clean transportation by biking and riding the bus. However, many of the buses in the FAX fleet still choke the air with diesel exhaust; I go through roles upon role of paper at my workplace producing construction documents, I specify products I know to be bad for the environment and that the heat and air conditioning can come on in the same day while it is 65-70 degrees outside. At home I use too much water while the canals are dry for many local farmers, and my 1940 home is extremely inefficient with energy. Many of these thing I feel either powerless or too lazy to change.

A frustrating part about this post is that I know much of this has been said before. I don’t have original content to share about this issue, or any light to shine with an insightful question. So I will end with some local project which have caught my eye for their sustainable strategies and design. Most of these projects are LEED certified or greater.

Fresno Cohousing by McCamant & Durrett Architects

Unitarian Universalist Church by McCamant & Durrett Architects

Kern Schools Federal Credit Union by the Taylor Teter Partnership

Art Ecology Architecture office by The Vernal Group

Santa Fe Depot by Johnson Architecture

“The greenest building is the one that already exists”

Tell me if I missed any well designed local projects that demonstrate sustainability. I’d be happy to post an image and link. And here is a shout out to the Central California Chapter of USGBC They’re fighting the good fight.